'Cove' Mind-set Harms Japan

'Cove' Mind-set Harms Japan

By Kevin Rafferty on JapanTimes.co.jp, March 2010

Similar claimants about Japan's rights to enjoy
its own culture have been vocal recently supporting whale-hunting and —
perversely — in Japan's refusal to join the rest of the world in a ban on
fishing of bluefin tuna.

These episodes illustrate the dangerous tendency
of Japan to put itself at the mercy of small but vocal interest groups, and
neither to think through the merits of arguments nor to appreciate the position
of Japan in the wider world.

The ballyhoo, glitz and glamour of the annual Oscars awards had many people
in the world waiting with baited breath to see if they could make even a
tangential claim to knowing one of the winners. Newspapers cleared their front
pages if someone from their town, sometimes even their country, won an Oscar.

But there was a notable exception this year. One tiny town won an Oscar
almost all to itself and went into an angry sulk about it. The town is Taiji, a
mere speck of 3,500 people in Wakayama Prefecture, whose claim to fame — or
infamy — is portrayed in the winning documentary entry, "The Cove."

Every year Taiji's fishermen make a huge din to disorientate and herd
hundreds of dolphins into its bay, select a few of the fittest females to sell
to aquariums around the world and then slaughter the rest, bloodily turning the
sea red.

The Oscar winners used James Bond- style spy cameras, including some
disguised as rocks, to infiltrate Taiji and record the slaughter in all its
inglorious color. Before then, the annual dolphin kill had been something of a
secret since snooping outsiders were quickly expelled from the town.

"The Cove" raises all sorts of questions about Japan's internal politics,
including police collusion with the town authorities in expelling intruders. The
film also claims that dolphin meat is passed off as whale meat and that the
local population suffers from mercury levels 10 times Japan's average, brought
in by the hapless dolphins which have imbibed hazardous waste chucked out to
sea. Surely these are matters which should be aired publicly for everyone's
health and safety.

The dolphin slaughter and reactions to it should also flag some awkward
questions for Japan and its foreign relations. To be blunt — which planet does
Japan live on? Taiji is angry that the filmmakers used underhanded spying
methods to expose the killing. It also argues that outsiders should respect
Japan's freedom and special culture.

Similar claimants about Japan's rights to enjoy its own culture have been
vocal recently supporting whale-hunting and — perversely — in Japan's refusal to
join the rest of the world in a ban on fishing of bluefin tuna.

These episodes illustrate the dangerous tendency of Japan to put itself at
the mercy of small but vocal interest groups, and neither to think through the
merits of arguments nor to appreciate the position of Japan in the wider world.

Agriculture, including fishing, accounts for a tiny part of Japan's
employment and gross domestic product, 4.4 percent and 1.6 percent. Yes,
featherbedding of farmers means that Japan is self-sufficient in rice, but at a
high price, but not self-sufficient in food. The farm population is also
increasingly elderly and productivity is low on small plots.

Whaling is even tinier in its contribution to employment and the economy, and
only a minuscule minority of Japanese eat whale meat, even once a year. Yet the
industry has managed to capture the government and present itself as the flag
bearer for Japanese civilization — which is nonsense. Japanese civilization and
culture are far richer than whaling.

A few centuries ago my hometown, Kingston upon Hull, was a considerable
whaling port. In the 20th century, it became the world's largest fishing port.
Then Iceland decreed an expansion of its territorial waters and declared them
off limits to foreign fishermen, leading to the demise of the Hull fishing
industry. The United Kingdom gave in to Iceland because of the importance of a
NATO military base in Iceland. Has the city recovered? Not completely. Its
population has dropped from 300,000 to 250,000 as it continues to struggle with
harsh political realities. In Tony Blair's government, the deputy prime minister
represented a Hull constituency and today the home minister also has a Hull
seat. Even so, their influence cannot trump what is regarded as the national
good.

For a tiny town of dolphin slaughterers to call the shots in Japan is just
plain daft. For the whale hunters to have the clout they do is a waste of
Japan's international political capital.

Fishing is a different matter since fish is a vital part of the Japanese
diet. Even so, Japan would be advised to play a constructive role in
international forums to establish bans or effective quotas so that there is
still fish left in the sea for the next generation. If there is a free-for-all,
Japan should be able to see that China is building up its fishing fleet and its
appetite for fish and it is obvious who has the deeper pockets.

Japan, unlike the reluctant U.K. that has to wrestle daily with European
Union demands on its politics, economics and legal system, has never had to cope
on a regular basis with adjusting its domestic policies to foreign demands.

One tiny token of how Japan fears foreigners is that Prime Minister Yukio
Hatoyama is hesitating over a bill to allow foreigners with permanent residence
in Japan the right to vote in local elections. He has faced a spate of
opposition based on the xenophobic fear that foreigners might take over the
country — which is completely unfounded given that the taxpaying foreigners, who
are about 1 percent of the population, would be voting for Japanese candidates
and only in local elections.

Another problem is that Japan's politics has long been set in stone. There
are signs that this is changing with Hatoyama's new government, but so far its
members are not managing to connect the dots into coherent thinking. Foreign
Minister Katsuya Okada said this month that the previous Liberal Democratic
Party government had followed U.S. foreign policy "too closely" and that from
now on "this will be the age of Asia." But Japan has yet to grasp the difficult
ramifications of this. It will mean devising new policies to deal with China and
with the U.S., a difficult balancing act given the continuing importance of the
U.S. security umbrella and growing economic ties with China. The ham-fisted way
the government is mishandling the question of U.S. bases in Okinawa suggests the
opposite of joined up thinking.

If Japan were powerful like the U.S. or even like China, it could afford to
be more carefree about the occasions when it asserts its special culture and
traditions. Any serious attempt to create an Asian union or common market would
make this apparent. Japan has much to give Asia and the rest of the world, but
if it keeps putting its head in the sand over minor issues, Japan will be the
first to suffer.

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